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Tuberculosis

March 2012

The Stop TB Strategy, the Global Plan to Stop TB, 2006–2015 and targets for TB control

In 2006, WHO launched a six-point Stop TB Strategy.

This strategy builds on DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment Short-course), the TB control approach launched by WHO in 1995.

5.7 million TB cases were notified through TB DOTS programmes in 2010.

The six-point strategy builds on this success, while recognizing the key challenges of TB/HIV and MDR-TB.

It also responds to access, equity and quality constraints, and adopts evidence-based innovations in engaging with private health-care providers, empowering affected people and communities, to help strengthen health systems and promote research.

The strategy is being implemented as described in The Global Plan to Stop TB, 2011-2015. The Global Plan is a comprehensive assessment of the action and resources needed to implement the Stop TB Strategy and to achieve the following targets:

Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 6, Target 8: Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of TB by 2015;

Targets linked to the MDGs and endorsed by the Stop TB Partnership:

by 2015: reduce TB prevalence and death rates by 50% relative to 1990;

by 2050: eliminate TB as a public health problem (1 case per million population).

The six components of the Stop TB Strategy

Pursue high-quality DOTS expansion and enhancement. Making high-quality services widely available and accessible to all those who need them, including the poorest and most vulnerable, requires DOTS expansion to even the remotest areas.

Addressing TB/HIV, MDR-TB and the needs of poor and vulnerable populations. Addressing TB/HIV, MDR-TB and the needs of poor and vulnerable populations requires much greater action and input than DOTS implementation and is essential to achieving the targets set for 2015, including the United Nations Millennium Development Goals relating to TB (Goal 6; Target 8).

Contribute to health system strengthening based on primary health care. National TB control programmes must contribute to overall strategies to advance financing, planning, management, information and supply systems and innovative service delivery scale-up.

Engage all care providers. TB patients seek care from a wide array of public, private, corporate and voluntary health-care providers. To be able to reach all patients and ensure that they receive high-quality care, all types of health-care providers need to be engaged.

Empower people with TB, and communities through partnership. Community TB care projects have shown how people and communities can undertake some essential TB control tasks. These networks can mobilize civil societies and also ensure political support and long-term sustainability for TB control programmes.

Enable and promote research. While current tools can control TB, improved practices and elimination will depend on new diagnostics, drugs and vaccines.